The New Accelerator

by H. G. Wells

The narrator and Professor Gibberne test the professor’s potion that will speed up their metabolisms by a factor of a thousand or more.

— Michael Main

I sat down. “Give me the potion,” I said. “If the worst comes to the worst it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one of the most hateful duties of a civilized man. How do you take the mixture?”

“The New Accelerator” by H. G. Wells, Strand Magazine, December 1901.

Prehistoric Peeps

[writer unknown], directed by Lewin Fitzhamon

After falling asleep, Professor Chump finds himself being chased by dinosaurs and curvaceous cavewomen. Intended as a dream, I suppose. In any case, this is one of a series of live-action films based on E. T. Reed’s cartoons from Punch. I ran into several websites, including Palaeontology Online, that blamed this one movie for cementing the juxtaposition of dinosaurs and men in the cinema forevermore. According to IMDb trivia, the dinosaur special effects were accomplished with simple costumes.

— Michael Main

Prehistoric Peeps [writer unknown], directed by Lewin Fitzhamon (at movie theaters, UK, August 1905).

When Knights Were Bold

by Harriet Jay and Robert Buchanan

The plot of . . . “When Knights Were Bold,” is more or less original as modern comedies go. It circles round the love affair of a man and a maid. In the first act, a very twentieth century one, the hero, despite the pronounced encouragement of the heroine, fails to screw up his courage to the proposing point. When alone he can declare his love manfully enough, but in the maid’s presence he becomes as shy as an early Victorian school miss. As the curtain falls, he writes himself down as an ass, takes a big drink, smokes a cigarette, and—dreams.

Act II represents the dream. It is the medieval age—the age of chivalry, of bold, bad barons and gallant knights. An ancestor of the hero is one of these latter. His love story is depicted vividly. There is nothing lackadaisical about the lovemaking. The bold knight finally seizes the maiden in his arms and carries her off bodily to the altar in the face of strenuous opposition.

In act III the twentieth century again appears. There hero wakes up and follows, so far as modernity will let him, the example of his ancestory shown him in the second act.

— San Francisco Call, 14 December 1906

Sadly, we haven’t tracked down the script (possibly because it was never published), but we know from several reviews that the modern day Sir Guy loathes the very mention of days of old.

When Knights Were Bold by Harriet Jay and Robert Buchanan (at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, UK, 17 September 1906).

When Knights Were Bold

by Frank Miller (early screenwriter), directed by Maurice Elvey

. . . we thought [Kenilworth Castle] might account for the cold in the head which was the cause of Sir Guy’s tribulations [possibly his dream or trip to the past]. . . . The story of the play has been followed closely, and the humour of its situations and much of its dialogue skilfully preserved, while the more spacious setting provides opportunities for many effective scenes which add greatly to its interest.

— from The Bioscope, 10 August 1916

When Knights Were Bold by Frank Miller (early screenwriter), directed by Maurice Elvey (at movie theaters, UK, May 1916).

Il cavaliere del silenzio

Literal: The silent knight

[writer unknown], directed by Oreste Visalli

We have sparse information about this silent film apart from a note in Alan Goble’s The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film, which lists the 1907 [sic] play When Knights Were Bold as the source of the 1180-meter film, directed by Oreste Visalli, released by Aquila Film, and featuring Jeanne Nolly, Giulio Del Torre, and Claudia Zambuto.

— Michael Main

Il cavaliere del silenzio [writer unknown], directed by Oreste Visalli (at movie theaters, Italy, June 1916).

The Ghost of Slumber Mountain

written and directed by Willis H. O’Brien

Unk tells a story to his two nephews about the time when he and Joe visited the stone-covered grave and haunted cabin of Mad Dick where they (and their dog, Soxie) were able to view the prehistoric past through a queer looking instrument that accidentally allowed T. Rex onto Slumber Mountain. Sadly, at the end, Unk suggests that it was all a dream, but what does he know?!

The IMDb lists Herbert M. Dawley as a co-writer, but Wikipedia lists him as only the producer. The initial three-reel film premiered at the Strand Theater, but an unhappy Dawley cut it from over 40 minutes to about 12. Around six extra minutes were later restored by the Dinosaur Museum of Blanding, Utah, in 2016, but the full version no longer exists.

— Michael Main

Far, far away, at the foot of a cliff, a Thunder Lizard—which must have been at least one hundred feet long—appeared out of the mists of forty million years.

The Ghost of Slumber Mountain written and directed by Willis H. O’Brien (premiered at the Strand Theater, Dorcester, Massachusetts, 17 November 1918).

The Time Professor

by Ray Cummings

Professor Waning Glory takes his new friend Tubby on a trip in a boat that stays always at 9 p.m. in a lofty time-river of some sort, starting at Coney Island, then Chicago, then Denver, and farther west. The professor is able to briefly stop the boat above Chicago, where time for those below stays frozen at 9 p.m., and when their boat crosses the 180° meridian, they travel back a day. Eventually, they arrive back at their starting point on Coney Island, where it is still 9 p.m.

— Michael Main

Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.

“The Time Professor” by Ray Cummings, in Argosy, 1 January 1921.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

by Bernard McConville, directed by Emmett J. Flynn

We may never see this first movie adaptation of Twain’s story, since only three of the eight silent reels are known to still exist. The Yankee in this version is Martin Cavendish, who after reading Twain’s book, is knocked on the head by a burglar and slips into the time of Camelot. The result is high comedy coupled with a romantic interest and replete with motorcycles, explosions, Model T Fords, telephones, indoor plumbing, and lassos at a jousting tournament. As we did for Twain’s original, we classify the story as science fiction for the Yankee’s attempts at bringing modern technology to the distant past. And yes, the hero predicts a solar eclipse to save his life.

One review at Silent Hollywood indicates that the ending has Martin awakening from a dream and there is no explicit mention of actual time travel. With this in mind, we’re marking the time travel as debatable. Oh, and Mark Twain himself appears in the film, played by Karl Formes.

— Michael Main

All this nobility stuff is bunk.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Bernard McConville, directed by Emmett J. Flynn (at movie theaters, USA, 14 March 1921).

If

by Lord Dunsany

John Beal, a London businessman, is given a magic crystal that allows him to go back in time and change one act; he is happy with his current life, so he decides to merely go back to catch a train that he was annoyed about missing ten years ago—but the resulting changes are more than he ever expected.

This is the earliest story that I’ve seen where the hero goes back into his earlier body and relives something differently. Some of the later stories of this kind have no actual time travel, but merely give knowledge of an alternate timeline (e.g., Asimov’s “What If?”); others live out the two timelines in parallel (e.g., the 1998 movie Sliding Doors, also set in motion by a missed/caught train); and some, like If, are couched in terms of time travel (e.g., the 1986 movie Peggy Sue Got Married).

— Michael Main

He that taketh this crystal, so, in his hand, at night, and wishes, saying ‘At a certain hour let it be’; the hour comes and he will go back eight, ten, even twelve years if he will, into the past, and do a thing again, or act otherwise than he did. The day passes; the ten years are accomplished once again; he is here once more; but he is what he might have become had he done that one thing otherwise.

If by Lord Dunsany, at the Ambassadors’ Theatre (London, 30 May 1921).

Un brillant sujet

Literal: A brilliant subject

by Jacques Rigaut

Now that we’re in the enlightened 21st century, every self-respecting reader is intimately familiar with all the early time travel classics. Anno 7603, Paris avant les hommes,[/em] “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains,” “The Clock That Went Backward,” El Anacronópete, The Time Machine, blah blah blah. But let’s be honest and call a Morlock a Morlock: All those old tales are tales of vacuous travelers through time, none of them giving a thought to contorted paradoxes, none wondering which lover they would get back (or get revenge on) if given the chance, none fretting about what might happen should they kill their younger self, and none having impure thoughts about sleeping with their mothers or the consequences of doing so. Yep, I’d always proudly boasted that it was my generation who discovered such sauciness.

And then I stumbled upon Jacques Rigaut’s century-old gem that managed all that and more in under 1,000 words more than a century ago.

— Michael Main

Divers incestes sont consommés. Palentête a quelques raisons de croire qu’il est son propre père.

Various incests are consummated. Skullhead has some reason to believe that he is his own father.

English

[ex=bare]“Un brillant sujet” | A brilliant subject[/ex] by Jacques Rigaut, Littérature #2, April 1922.

The Man from Beyond

by Coolidge Streeter, directed by Burton L. King

After a century of being frozen solid, Howard Hillary is chopped from a mass of arctic ice and thawed out. Given that nobody ever tells him how long he’s been out of circulation, it’s unsurprising that he proceeds to set out to find his beloved Felice.

Normally, we don’t list long-sleep stories, given that they are not true time travel, but this one deserves a spot in the ITTDB, seeing as how it‘s the first long-sleep silent film. As a bonus, you’ll see Houdini doing his own stunts as the frozen man brought to life. The script was based on a story by Houdini.

— Michael Main

He must have loved this Felice, and we may have brought him back to what is, for him, an empty world.

The Man from Beyond by Coolidge Streeter, directed by Burton L. King (at movie theaters, USA, 2 April 1922).

The Devil of the Western Sea

by Philip M. Fisher

I was always drawn to the idea behind [Error: Missing '[/exn]' tag for wikilink]

— Michael Main

But the main point I desire to make is that this neutralization was to be effected by a combination of the ordinary wave impluse with the Callieri Cool Wave. The combination, you understand. It had never been tried on a large scale—it was a virgin experiment.

So the professor was given a free hand, and went below. It was past nine o’clock.

I remained on the bridge enjoying a cigar with the officer of the deck, and chatting over a coming boar hunt we were to have south of the canal during the coming weekend. we had been talking for perhaps ten minutes in the darkness of the bridge, with the black satin of the Caribbean spreading out ahead and about the ship, and the diamond stars projecting just above our heads as though ready for any plucking hand, when suddenly we found ourselves half blinded by a dazzling light in the west.

“The Devil of the Western Sea” by Philip M. Fisher, in Argosy, 5 August 1922.

The Clockwork Man

by E. V. Odle

A peculiar man with mechanical mannerisms appears at a cricket match spouting nonsense and later causing headaches throughout the village until Dr. Allingham finally talks to him and discovers that the origin of the man with clockwork devices implanted in his head is some 8000 years in the future.

“Perhaps I ought to explain,” he continued. “You see, I’m a clockwork man.”

The Clockwork Man by E. V. Odle (William Heinemann, 1923).

The Collapse of Homo Sapiens

by P. Anderson Graham

The narrator longs to see history develop over centuries, so when an immensely evolved Being offers to take him into the future, he agrees and is taken to a dystopian world of 2120 A.D. when mankind is on the verge of extinction.

— Michael Main

After wading through years of fruitless research and encountering failures enough to make the heart sick, I accidentally got into communication with an intelligence whose home was no single sphere but the universe, one to whom human time was nought, as were also human fears, joys, sorrows and emotions. The fortunes of mankind meant no more to him that thosee of a tribe of insects, one year swarming over the earth, the next swept out of existence.

He would not let me address him in the language intercession. “I am like you,” he said, “but of a different sphere and a different power. I am not immortal; nothing is immortal. Neither the Earth, the Sun, nor the God who made them. Everything is passing away, or rather, dissolving, to be re-fashioned into other forms.”

The Collapse of Homo Sapiens by P. Anderson Graham (G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1923).

Not in Our Stars

by Conrad Arthur Skinner

After a meteor strike and some scientific mumbo-jumbo, Felix Menzies wakes up in a jail cell on the day before his execution for murdering the man he wrongly thought was his wife’s lover—an act he doesn’t remember—, and then he starts waking up on each previous morning, whereupon he begins to think he can cheat Destiny by not murdering the guy in the first place.

— Michael Main

If he did meet Savile, he was prepared to shake hands with him in the old way, and to realize what a neurotic fool he had been: also that Destiny had made an idiot of itself with the careless blundering born of the knowledge that nobody would ever know, nobody, that is, except himself; and, of course, Destiny safely relied on the assumption that nobody would believe him.

Not in Our Stars by Conrad Arthur Skinner (T. Fisher Unwin, 1923).

The Road to Yesterday

by Jeanie MacPherson, Beulah Marie Dix, and Howard Hawks, directed by Cecille B. DeMille

Bickering newlyweds Kenneth and Malena Paulton are thrown back to previous lives in Elizabethan England where they are a knight and a gypsy. The film is loosely based on the earlier play of the same name by Dix and Sutherland.

Safety note: Do not attempt this movie’s method of creating a timeslip—via a fiery train crash—at home.

— Michael Main

I know I love you, Ken! But today—during the marriage service—something seemed to reach out of the Past that made me—afraid!

The Road to Yesterday by Jeanie MacPherson, Beulah Marie Dix, and Howard Hawks, directed by Cecille B. DeMille (at movie theaters, USA, 15 November 1925).

The Jest of Hahalaba

by Lord Dunsany

Against the advice of his alchemist, Sir Arthur calls up the Spirit of Laughter on New Year’s Eve and asks to see the coming year’s issues of the Times.

— Michael Main

Sir Arthur Strangways: Only a trifle. I wish to see a file of the Times.
Hahalaba:For what year?

The Jest of Hahalaba by Lord Dunsany, unknown first performance, circa 1926.

The Dancing Cavalier

by Don Lockwood, Cosmo Brown, and Kathy Selden, directed by Roscoe Dexter

Of course, this early talkie shouldn't be in our list because the writer himself—as Cosmo Brown—says it’s all just a dream, but when one of our correspondents pointed out that none other than Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont starred in The Dancing Cavalier (née The Dueling Cavalier), we couldn’t resist. Note: Lina Lamont’s voice was dubbed over by writer Kathy Selden, but due to Lamont’s underhanded ploys, Selden went uncredited in the original release.

— Dora Bailey

How’s this? We throw a modern section into the picture. The hero’s a young hoofer in a Broadway show, right? Now he sings and he dances, right? But one night backstage, he’s reading A Tale of Two Cities, in between numbers, see? And a sandbag falls and hits him on the head, and he dreams he’s back during the French Revolution, right? Well, this way we get in the modern dancing numbers—♫Charleston, Charleston♫—but in the dream part, we can still use the costume stuff!

The Dancing Cavalier by Don Lockwood, Cosmo Brown, and Kathy Selden, directed by Roscoe Dexter (premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Hollywood, California early May 1928).

When Knights Were Bold

[writer unknown], directed by Tim Whelan

This is a very free adaptation of the merry farce in which James Welch made so great a success, and with the greater scope of the screen, with some characters omitted and new ones introduced, there remains little beyond the main idea to make any comparison with the original more than a matter of antiquarian history. As, however, the majority of modern picture audiences will never have seen the original play, the film will be judged on its own merits, and there is little doubt that its fantasy and quaint humour will recommend it to popular favour.

— The Bioscope, 6 February 1929

When Knights Were Bold [writer unknown], directed by Tim Whelan (at movie theaters, UK, February 1929).

Portrait of Jennie

by Robert Nathan

In 1938, painter Eben Adams struggles to find his muse and put food on the table until a young girl named Jennie appears to him from some two decades earlier, beseeching him to wait for her. Over the next few months of visitations in Eben’s time, Jennie grows into her twenties, and Eben falls in love with his muse.

— Michael Main

Never before had it occurred to me to ask myself why the sun should rise each morning on a new day instead of upon the old day over again; or to wonder how much of what I did was really my own to do. It may be that here on this earth we are not grateful enough for our ignorance, and our innocence. We think that there is only one road, one direction—forward; and we accept it, and press on. We think of God, we think of the mystery of the universe, but we do not think about it very much, and we do not really believe that it is a mystery, or that we could not understand it if it were explained to us.

Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan (Alfred A. Knopf, 1940).

The Silver Highway

by Harold Lawlor

Most likely, Lucy from 1905 is an ordinary ghost rather than a time traveling ghost, but she is confused by the forty years since her death in a brand new Pope-Hartford runabout, so who really knows? So, we’re calling it Debatable Time Travel™.

— Michael Main

She was dressed in a long linen duster and a linen hat, bound round with an emerald veil tied in a bow under her chin. Modish clothing for motoring—in 1905.

“The Silver Highway” by Harold Lawlor, Weird Tales, May 1946.

Portrait of Jennie

by Paul Osborn et al. , directed by William Dieterle

Unlike the original novella, only Eben can see Jennie, bringing up the possibility that she is but a ghost. The ghost theory is supported by her mild premonitions of their evenutal fate (which also differs in some ways from the novella), but we nevertheless hold out some hope that director (and the revolving cadre of five writers) intended the film to portray Jennie’s time travel.

— Michael Main

There’s something different about that child. I wondered if my pencil could catch it.

Portrait of Jennie by Paul Osborn et al. , directed by William Dieterle (premiered at an unknown movie theater, Los Angeles, 25 December 1948).

Factor, Unknown

by Sam Merwin, Jr.

In order to save the world, wealthy young Houghton travels back fifty years to set straight his great-uncle’s world-threatening mistakes, but it’s Alison—Houghton’s fiery tempered cousin-once-removed—who has a more genuine interest in saving the future than her father does.

— Michael Main

“This is most extraordinary,” he said in an unexpectedly high-pitched voice, regarding Houghton benignly from the tall white fortress of his collar. “You say that you have come back through time to instruct me how to arrange my affairs so that they will not be instrumental in destroying the world some fifty years hence.”

“Factor, Unknown” by Sam Merwin, Jr., Other Worlds Science Stories, June 1952.

Journey into Mystery #18

The Man Who Went Back!

by Carl Wessler and Pete Tumlinson

When Jeff Martin floats downstream, he literally floats back in time. Now, if only those two pesky men would quit following him,

— Michael Main

It looks like there was something about that swim in the river that threw me back ten years!

“The Man Who Went Back!” by Carl Wessler and Pete Tumlinson, in Journey into Mystery #18 (Atlas Comics, October 1954).

Unusual Tales #11

Noise in the Cellar

by Joe Gill [?] and Bill Molno

Once again, a plumber receives an emergency call from 12 Hedge Row.

— Michael Main

Will you come right over? My water heater looks dangerous!

“Noise in the Cellar” by Joe Gill [?] and Bill Molno, Unusual Tales #11 (Charlton Comics, March 1958).

The Twilight Zone (r1s01e18)

The Last Flight

by Rod Serling, directed by William F. Claxton

World War I pilot Terry Decker flies through a white cloud and emerges 42 years later, landing at an American Air Force Base in France, at which point he proves that a Nieuport 28 biplane is capable of doing a causal loop just as well as he can do an Immelmann Turn.

— Michael Main

The Twilight Zone (v1s01e18), “The Last Flight” by Rod Serling, directed by William F. Claxton (CBS-TV, USA, 5 February 1960).

The Time Machine

by David Duncan, directed by George Pal

The Traveller now has a name—H. George Wells (played by Rod Taylor)—and Weena has the beautiful face and talent of Yvette Mimieux.

— Michael Main

When I speak of time, I’m speaking of the fourth dimension.

The Time Machine by David Duncan, directed by George Pal (at limited movie theaters, Rome, 25 May 1960).

The Twilight Zone (r1s02e09)

The Trouble with Templeton

by E. Jack Neuman, directed by Buzz Kulik

The trouble with aging actor Booth Templeton is that he sees life as useless even decades after his young wife died. The answer to his trouble may lie in the people he meets—including his dead wife, Laura!—in what appears to be his hangouts from some thirty years ago. Actual time travel or something more fantastical? You be the judge.

— Michael Main

Laura! The freshest, most radiant creature God ever created. Eighteen when I married her, Marty, . . . twenty-five when she died.

The Twilight Zone (v1s02e09), “The Trouble with Templeton” by E. Jack Neuman, directed by Buzz Kulik (CBS-TV, USA, 9 December 1960).

Unusual Tales #30

A Small Matter of Time

by Joe Gill [?] and Rocco “Rocke” Mastroserio

The title suggests that Professor Amos Shute’s intrepid travelers are going back in time to four planets that are identical in every way to our own, but then again, perhaps those four planets were merely at earlier times to begin with. We won’t say one way or another, but we are glad that the Spanish Flu pandemic, World War I, World War II, and World War III were all averted on some Earth.

— Michael Main

In what time period will you find yourselves when you land at your particular destinatoin!

“A Small Matter of Time” by Joe Gill [?] and Rocco “Rocke” Mastroserio, Unusual Tales #30 (Charlton Comics, October 1961).

Unusual Tales #47

The Unwelcome Guest

by Joe Gill [?] and Bill Molno

After a car accident, Steve Teller stumbles into a house that takes him from one time to another.

— Michael Main

Open up! I’ve had enough of this! Whatever crazy explanation there is, I want it now!

“The Unwelcome Guest” by Joe Gill [?] and Bill Molno, Unusual Tales #47 (Charlton Comics, November 1964).

Jessamy

by Barbara Sleigh

Visiting with the caretaker of an empty old mansion, orphaned Jessamy emerges from the nursery closet into the world of 1914 when her namesake lived in the same house and left her adventures and a mystery to be solved again in the present.

— from publicity material

Somehow I’ve become another Jessamy in a different time! It must be a different time because of the clothes. Nobody wears long skirts like Matchett and Aunt now—I mean that—oh, I don’t know what I mean!

Jessamy by Barbara Sleigh (Bobbs-Merrill, 1967).

Aviary Hall 3

Charlotte Sometimes

by Penelope Farmer

Two young, boarding-school students—Charlotte in 1963 and Clare in 1918—swap minds through time every night, until one day the bed that’s causing all this magic gets moved to the hospital ward, and they are stuck in each other’s times.

— Michael Main

“But I’m not Clare,” Charlotte began to say hopelessly, then stopped herself, explanation being impossible, especially since this girl seemed to think so incredibly that she was Clare.

Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (Chatto and Windus, September 1969).

The Amazing Mr. Blunden

written and directed by Lionel Jeffries

As in the The Ghosts, which formed the basis for the film, a mysterious Mr. Blunden arranges for a widow and her children to move to an old English house while the rightful heir to the house is tracked down. But in the film, young Lucy and Jamie are in 1918 rather than the 1960s, and the “ghost children” are from 1818 rather than the 1860s. Nevertheless, Lucy, Jamie, Sara, George, and Tom all have the same adventure in the past along with a cool Grandchild Paradox.

— Michael Main

Now is the time. Look straight ahead and don’t be afraid.

The Amazing Mr. Blunden written and directed by Lionel Jeffries (at movie theaters, UK, 30 November 1972).

Dead of Night [segment 1]

Second Chance

by Richard Matheson, directed by Dan Curtis

For the first of three short segments of the TV movie Dead of Night, Richard Matheson wrote this adaptation of Jack Finney’s 1956 story “Second Chance” where a college student lovingly restores a 1920s-era Jordan Playboy roadster and takes it back in time.

— Michael Main

I remember what someone once said; I think it was Einstein or somebody like that. He compared time to a winding river, with all of us in a boat drifting along between two high banks. And we can’t see the future beyond the next curve or the past beyond the curves in back of us, but it’s all still there, as real as the moment around us. To which I now add my own theory . . . that you can’t drive into the past in a modern car because there were no modern cars back then, and you can’t drive into 1926 along a four-lane superhighway, but my car and I—the way I felt about it anyway—were literally rejected that night by our own time.

Second Chance by Richard Matheson, directed by Dan Curtis (NBC-TV, USA, 29 March 1977).

The Mirror

by Marlys Millhiser

In 1978, a 20-year-old Boulder woman exchanges places with her grandmother in 1900 on the eve of their respective weddings.

— Michael Main

He thought she wouldn’t answer but finally she said, “What if I can’t go back? What if I have to live out Brandy’s life? She lives an awfully long time, Corbin.”

The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978).

Somewhere in Time

by Richard Matheson, directed by Jeannot Szwarc

An elderly woman presses a pocket watch into a man’s hand, beseeching him to come back to her, and eventually) he does come back to her. We count this as science fiction rather than fantasy because of Professor Finney(!)’s attempt at an explanation of time travel via self-hypnosis, similar to the method in Jack Finney’s Time and Again (1970). In addition, the film may contain the first example of a looping artifact with no beginning and no end.

Wayne Winsett, owner of Time Warp Comics, tells me that this is his favorite time travel movie. Wayne is not alone in his assessment of Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, as the film now enjoys a mild cult following.

— Michael Main

Come back to me.

Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson, directed by Jeannot Szwarc (at movie theaters, USA, 3 October 1980).

Time Bandits

by Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, directed by Terry Gilliam

A boy’s bedroom is invaded by six dwarves who have stolen The Supreme Being’s map, which naturally leads both boy and dwarves on adventures through time.

— Michael Main

Is it all ready? Right. Come on then. Back to creation. We mustn’t waste any more time. They’ll think I’ve lost control again and put it all down to evolution.

Time Bandits by Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, directed by Terry Gilliam (at movie theaters, USA, 16 July 1981).

Ripples in the Dirac Sea

by Geoffrey A. Landis

A physics guy invents a time machine that can go only backward and must always return the traveler to the exact same present from which he left.

— Michael Main

Travel is possible only into the past.
The object transported will return to exactly the time and place of departure.
It is not possible to bring objects from the past to the present.
Actions in the past cannot change the present.

“Ripples in the Dirac Sea” by Geoffrey A. Landis, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, October 1988.

Field of Dreams

written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson

Corn farmer Ray Kinsella is called to build a ballpark in his cornfield; once the field is built, various ballplayers from the past come. The players seem more like ghosts who regard the field as their heaven rather than time travelers, so the actual time travel element is slight, arising from a walk when Ray slips into 1972.

— Michael Main

If you build it, they will come.

Field of Dreams written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson (at limited movie theaters, USA, 21 April 1989).

The Hemingway Hoax

by Joe Haldeman

Literature professor John Baird and conman Sylvester Castlemaine hatch a plan to get rich forging Hemingway’s lost stories, but before long, Baird is confronted by an apparent guardian of the many timelines in the form of Hemingway himself.

— Michael Main

I’m from the future and the past and other temporalities that you can’t comprehend. But all you need to know is that yiou must not write this Hemingway story. If you do, I or someone like me will have to kill you.

“The Hemingway Hoax” by Joe Haldeman, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April 1990.

From Time to Time

by Jack Finney

Finney’s sequel to Time and Again initially finds Si Morley living a happy life in the 19th century with his 19th century family, while The Project in the future never even got started because he prevented the inventor’s parents from ever meeting. But vague memories linger in some of the Project member’s minds, and Morley can’t stay put.

— Michael Main

They’re back there in the past, trampling around, changing things, aren’t they? They don’t know it. They’re just living their happy lives, but changing small events. Mostly trivial, with no important effects. But every once in a while the effect of some small changed event moves on down to the—

From Time to Time by Jack Finney (Simon and Shuster, February 1995).

12 Monkeys

by David Webb Peoples and Janet Peoples, directed by Terry Gilliam

In the year 2035, with the world devastated by an artificially engineered plague, convict James Cole is sent back in time to gather information about the plague’s origin so the scientists can figure out how to fight it.

— Michael Main

If you can’t change anything because it’s already happened, you may as well smell the flowers.

12 Monkeys by David Webb Peoples and Janet Peoples, directed by Terry Gilliam (premiered at an unknown movie theater, New York City, 8 December 1995).

The Magic Tree House 17

Tonight on the Titanic

by Mary Pope Osborne

A note from Morgan introduces Jack and Annie to a little brown dog named Teddy who needs three gifts to free him from a spell. Then they all head back to the Titanic to find the first gift (but not to save the sinking ship).

— Michael Main

“Well, at least that’s good,” said Jack. “The ship won’t sink, even if it is lost.”

Tonight on the Titanic by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, March 1999).

The Magic Tree House 24

Earthquake in the Early Morning

by Mary Pope Osborne

Jack and Annie help a man rescue old, treasured books after the Great San Francisco Earthquake and before the fire. And with their fourth piece of writing, they finally get to visit Camelot!

— Michael Main

Jack slowly stood up. His legs felt wobbly. As he brushed off his pants, the deep rumbling came again—louder than before.

Earthquake in the Early Morning by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, August 2001).

Children of the Red King #2

Charlie Bone and the Time Twister

by Jenny Nimmo

In 1916, young Henry Yewbeam’s lily-livered cousin tricks him into staring at the Time Twister marble, sending Henry ninety years into the future, where the cousin is still alive at over a hundred years and just as lily-livered as ever. The other children of time, some of whom are endowed with magic powers from an ancestor, are neatly divided into nice kids and horrid kids. There is never a doubt about which is which, although there are plenty of doubts about whether a rational model of time travel underlies the two (or possibly three) time travel instances. Please see the book’s tags for a short discussion of the issues.

— Michael Main

“People can’t go back. You can’t change history Think about it! When my father was five years old, he lost his brother. It changed his life. He became an only child, grew up as an only child. All his memories are of being an only one. You can’t change that now, can you?”

“No,” Charlie said quickly. “I’m sorry.”

His uncle hadn’t finished. “Henry’s parents mourned him, just as they mourned poor little Daphne. James was their only child and, as a result, he was probably spoiled. His father died in the war and his mother left everything to him, including her lovely cottage by the sea. You can’t change that, can you?”

The Time Twister by Jenny Nimmo (Egmont Books Ltd, April 2003).

Miri and Molly 2

Magic in the Mix

by Annie Barrows

After their first adventure united Miri and Molly as twins in the 21st century, the pair discover more about the magic of time travel via doorways and other openings in their house. Unfortunately, their twin brothers also go traveling, getting into hot water in 1864 Virginia.

— Michael Main

Molly, that’s totally crazy. You can’t stop yourself from existing because you do exist, you have to exist.

Magic in the Mix by Annie Barrows (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, December 2007).

Edelstein Trilogie, Book 1

Rubinrot

English release: Ruby Red Literal: Ruby red

by Kerstin Gier

Sixteen-year-old Gwendolyn Shepherd [Gwyneth in the English translation] always seems to be in the shadow of her cousin Charlotte Montrose, just because Charlotte—born the day before “Gwenny”—is prophesized to be the twelfth and final carrier of a rare time-travel gene passed down through the centuries. But Gwenny doesn’t mind, as she can’t think of anything worse than Charlotte’s carefully prescribed upbringing and the prospect of dizzy spells sending her uncontrollably through time. As the first book of the tightly connected Edelstein Trilogy, the plot plods through Gwenny’s anxious awakening to complicated family mysteries and to her feelings for the pompous Gideon de Villiers, aka time traveler #11.

— Michael Main

Es regnete fürchterlich. Ich hätte besser nicht nur den Regenmantel, sondern auch Gummistiefel angezogen. Mein Lieblings-Magnolienbaum an der Ecke ließ traurif sein Blüten hängen. Brevor ich ihn erreicht hatte, war ich schon dreimal in eine Pfütze getreten. Als ich gerade eine vierte umgehen wollte, riss es mich vollkommen ohne Vorwarnung von den Beinen. Mein magen fuhr Achterbahn und die Straße verschwamm vor meinen Augen zu einem grauen Fluss.

It was raining cats and dogs, and I wished I’d put on my wellies. The flowers on my favorite magnolia tree on the corner were drooping in a melancholy way. Before I reached it, I’d already splashed through three puddles. Just as I was trying to steer my way around a fourth, I was swept suddenly off my soggy feet. My stomach flip-flopped, and before my eyes, the street blurred into a grey river.

English

[ex=bare]Rubinrot | Ruby red[/ex] by Kerstin Gier (Arena Verlag, January 2009).

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 14*

A Good Night for Ghosts

by Mary Pope Osborne

Jack and Annie must travel back in time to New Orleans in 1915 to help a teenage Louis Armstrong fulfill his destiny and become the “King of Jazz.”

— based on fandom.com

A Good Night for Ghosts by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, July 2009) [print · e-book].

Dimensions

by Antony Neely, directed by Sloan U’Ren

Imagine you’re a young boy in 1921 Cambridge when your equally young first love dies in a deep well. What would you do? Naturally, you’d vow to become a great scientist in an artsy movie so you could go back in time to alter the tragic event.

Apparently, people in early 20th-century Cambridge espouse many wise thoughts about time, parallel universes that encompass every possible combination of events again and again, and something about every decision every made creating a branch point. In the end, it's difficult to make a cohesive model of time from the plotline of Dimensions, but we tried our best to do so in our plot notes.

— Michael Main

Annie: Are you ready to leave?
Stephen: Yes.
Annie: How long will it take?
Stephen: I don’t know: seconds, decades, an eternity.
Annie: An eternity? For a few moments together?
Stephen: Yes.

Dimensions by Antony Neely, directed by Sloan U’Ren (Cambridge Film Festival, 21 September 2011).

Todd Family 1

Life after Life

by Kate Atkinson

In one instantiation of her life, Ursula Todd dies just moments after her birth in 1910. Fortunately (for the sake of the novel), time seems to be cyclic, so she and the rest of the world get many chances at life. At times, she partially recalls her other lives, resulting in many consequences to history and her personal development.

— Michael Main

So much hot air rising above the tables in the Café Heck or the Osteria Bavaria, like smoke from the ovens. It was difficult to believe from this perspective that Hitler was going to lay waste to the world in a few years’ time.

“Time isn’t circular,” she said to Dr. Kellet. “It’s like a palimpsest.”
“Oh, dear,” he said. “That sounds very vexing.”
“And memories are sometimes in the future.”

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday, March 2013).

The Chronicles of St. Mary’s 1

Just One Damned Thing after Another

by Jodi Taylor

Fresh from finishing her Ph.D., Madeline Maxwell (aka Max) runs into her high school mentor who encourages her to apply for a position with a cloistered group of historians called St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research.

— Michael Main

Think of History as a living organism, with its own defence mechanisms. History will not permit anything to change events that have already taken place. If History thinks, even for one moment, that that is about to occur, then it will, without hesitation, eliminate the threatening virus. Or historian, as we like to call them.

Just One Damned Thing after Another by Jodi Taylor (Accent Press, June 2013).

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 22*

Hurry Up Houdini!

by Mary Pope Osborne

Jack and Annie meet one of the world’s most famous illusionists, Harry Houdini.

— based on fandom.com

Hurry Up Houdini! by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, August 2013) [print · e-book].

The Boy in His Winter

by Norman Lock

After Huck Finn and Jim fall asleep on an appropriated raft in Hannibal, Mo., they find themselves floating down the Mississippi for decades without ever aging a day themselves.

— Michael Main

We came by the raft dishonestly. We’d only meant to do a little fishing. It was cool and nice under the big willow with its whips trailing over the water. Christ, it was a scorcher of a day. The whole town must have fallen asleep, along with Jim and me. When we finally did wake, if we ever did, the raft was too far along in space and time to return it. We could no longer reverse ourselves, our motions in all five dimensions, than fly to the moon.

The Boy in His Winter by Norman Lock (Bellevue Literary Press, May 2014).

Effect and Cause

by Grove Koger

Over dinner, a group of professional men and women called the Club discuss a recent happening at a house that’s been haunted since 1928.

— Michael Main

The house Parry lived in had been built in 1928, right before the Depression hit, and the odd thing was that it apparently was haunted from the very beginning. From day one.

“Effect and Cause” by Grove Koger, Bewildering Stories, 15 September 2014.

The Age of Adaline

by J. Mills Goodloe and Salvador Paskowitz, directed by Lee Toland Krieger

Adaline lives most of the 20th century and into the 21st, all at age 29 with no actual time travel.

— Michael Main

Tell me something I can hold onto forever and never let go.

The Age of Adaline by J. Mills Goodloe and Salvador Paskowitz, directed by Lee Toland Krieger (at movie theaters, Belgium, 8 April 2015).

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 26*

Balto of the Blue Dawn

by Mary Pope Osborne

Jack and Annie travel back in time to 1925 Nome, Alaska, where they meet Balto, the famous sled dog, and save the town from an illness.

— based on fandom.com

Balto of the Blue Dawn by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, January 2016) [print · e-book].

Million Eyes 0.03

The Charlie Chaplin Time Traveller

by C. R. Berry

What could that mysterious woman be doing on the film clip of the 1928 premier of Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus, other than apparently talking into a small brick held to her ear?

— Michael Main

Yup, this woman was talking on a mobile phone—in 1928—decades before they were invented.

“The Charlie Chaplin Time Traveller” by C. R. Berry, in Tigershark Magazine 11, Autumn 2016.

How to Stop Time

by Matt Haig

As a 400-something-year-old member of the Albatross Society, Tom Hazard ages less than a month for each year of life. But now, after falling in the 21st-century and butting heads with the Society, he seems to be on a mental trip that covers his entire life (but not an actual time traveling trip).

— Michael Main

But as time goes by, at birthdays or other annual markers, people begin to notice you aren’t getting any older.

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (Canongate Books, July 2017).

Invictus

by Ryan Graudin

After Farway Gaius McCarthy fails his final examination at the Central Time Travelers Academy, he puts together a rogue time travel crew to swipe valuable artifacts from the past at moments when they won’t be missed. And it’s all roses until a mysterious girl sidetracks them on the Titanic and steers them into a multiverse of fading timelines.

As you might guess, we enjoyed Far and his friends, but the thing that sealed an Eloi Bronze Medal was the fact that when a particular timeline actually managed to branch (not an easy feat) and the traveler then jumped to the future, she found her another self—the her that was born on that timeline—waiting for her. Most branching timeline stories ignore this issue entirely.

— Michael Main

“There’s nothing to return to.” Eliot’s knuckles bulged at the seams, but she didn’t yell. “When the Fade destroys a moment, it’s lost. Forever.”

Invictus by Ryan Graudin (Little, Brown, September 2017).

The Magic Tree House 30*

Hurricane Heroes in Texas

by Mary Pope Osborne

The children play a role in saving thousands during the Great Galviston Hurricane[/ex].

— Michael Main

Annie turned back to the couple. “Excuse me again, do you know today’s date?” she asked.
“September eighth,” the woman said with a friendly smile.
“Nineteen-hundred?” Jack asked.

Hurricane Heroes in Texas by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, August 2018).

Throwback 1

Throwback

by Peter Lerangis

When 13-year-old Corey Fletcher first finds himself transported back in time, he doesn’t realize how it happened or that he is one of the rare travelers who can actually change the timeline, rescue his Papou, and maybe even save his grandma from 9/11.

— Michael Main

So . . . some people inherit diabetess, some inherit curly hair, and I inherited time travel?

Throwback by Peter Lerangis (HarperCollins, October 2019) [print · e-book].

Amazing Stories (r2s01e01)

The Cellar

by Jessica Sharzer, directed by Chris Long

Sam Taylor, a carpenter remodeling houses with his brother, feels ungrounded in 2019 until he uncovers a century-old photograph of a young bride along with a matchbook from a 1919 speakeasy. Like everyone else, we wondered at the end who Evelyn’s child is. Sam might be the father if a pregnant Evelyn traveled forward a second time, but that seems unlikely. I enjoyed that the writers left things open for us to wonder, and I also enjoyed the carefully constructed single static timeline.

— Michael Main

You were right—the photograph, it was me, it. . . It will be. I don’t know how, but it will.

Amazing Stories (v2s01e01), “The Cellar” by Jessica Sharzer, directed by Chris Long (Apple TV, 6 March 2020).

Max Einstein 3

Max Einstein Saves the Future

by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein

The prologue to the third Max Einstein book tells us that twelve-year-old genius do-gooder Max traveled as a baby from 1921 to the early 21st century when an experiment in her genius parents’ basement went a little ca-ca. Later on, Einstein himself makes a cameo appearance, possibly by opening some kind of communication line from the past to Max in her moment of need, but nothing else crops up in the way of time travel. I suspect that a truly genius rebel child would toss this aside as being condescending, preachy, one-dimensional, and melodramatic (not in a good way), as well as innacurate in most of its science and guilty of oversimplifying complex world problems.

— Michael Main

Plus, if you shut down the time machine and never came into the future, you would never do all the great things you have already done in your life. We wouldn’t be standing her right now if you went back in time and convinced your parents to dismantle the project.

Max Einstein Saves the Future by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein (Jimmy Patterson, August 2020).

Best. Scientist. EVER.

by Omar Velasco

You head out on a quick, rollicking ride back through time, with an unknown pursuer and an ambiguous conclusion.

— Tandy Ringoringo

You come to the conclusion that you can correct everything if you stop yourself before you steal the time machine.

“Best. Scientist. EVER.” by Omar Velasco, Daily Science Fiction, 8 December 2020 [webzine].

Annie and the Wolves

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Historical research Ruth McClintock and local high school student Reece have a journal written by Annie Oakley, from which they conclude that Annie was a time traveler to traumatic moments in her own life—a power that Ruth seems to share.

— Michael Main

Reece, it isn’t just clarvoyance or neurosis, either.
She’d tell him in person, the thing they should have come out and admitted from the start.
It’s time travel.

“Annie and the Wolves” by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Soho, February 2021).

The Magic Tree House 35*

Camp Time in California

by Mary Pope Osborne

Annie and Jack are given magical drawing powers when they meet a grizzly bear and a few other wanderers in 1903 Yosemite.

— Michael Main

If you’re a friend of bears, then take my advice: Walk softly and carry a big stick.

Camp Time in California by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, March 2021).

Da Vinci’s Cat

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

As a hostage to Pope Julius II in 1511 Rome, 11-year-old Federico is lonely until he receives a visit from a tawny cat, an art collector from the 20th century, and an 11-year-old kid named Bee from the 21st century.

— Michael Main

All we need is to get Raphael to draw me and make sure he signs it.

Da Vinci’s Cat by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Greenwillow Books, May 2021) [print · e-book].

Flashback

written and directed by Caroline Vigneaux

After high-powered lawyer Charlie Leroy gets her client cleared from a rape charge by claiming that the accuser’s lacy underwear was consent to have sex, Charlie finds herself transported by a divine cabdriver to historical moments that were key for women’s rights.

— Michael Main

Attends . . . si maman n'épouse pas papa, je vais pas naître. Je viens de me tuer.

Wait . . . if Mom never marries Dad, I won’t be born. I just killed myself.

English

Flashback written and directed by Caroline Vigneaux (Amazon Prime, 11 November 2021).

The Umbrella Academy, Season 3

After stopping the JFK-induced apocalypse in Season 2, the six Umbrella siblings return to 2019 where they no longer exist and their still-living father has founded The Sparrow Academy in their stead.

— Michael Main

Well, someone killed our mothers, so we shouldn’t exist, but clearly we do exist, and the universe can’t handle it, which is a problem.

The Umbrella Academy, Season 3 (Netflix, 22 June 2022).